One Room Challenge: The Office | Week 2

[et_pb_section admin_label="section"][et_pb_row admin_label="row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/guestparticipant.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] Well, this week my One Room Challenge feelings pretty much went back and forth between calm, collected confidence and sheer panic. On the one hand, I think I have a pretty solid design plan and timeline mapped out that I went through in my week one post. On the other hand, regular life is also happening and I have a very real budget (booo.....)

Like I said in my week 1 post, I am by no means a professional, and I do not have a professional (or even semi-professional) budget or resources. I'm stressing this for two main reasons. 1) To lower your expectations to the point that no matter what I pull off wows you 2) To attempt to make the point that you can have an awesome looking room without a whole lot to work with.

In this post I'm going to take you through my budget, and the first few big accomplishments in the space.

THE BUDGET

My parents and Andy will tell you that the most amazing skill I possess (and have possessed since an alarmingly young age) is the ability to instantly fall in love with the most expensive version of anything, before I am even remotely aware of what it costs. ANYTHING. Shopping for an Easter dress for my 4-year-old self? Mom look at how pretty this one (which happens to be imported from Paris and hand-embroidered) is! Looking at a menu when out to a nicer dinner with family friends? Sure my 8-year-old sister is happy with chicken strips, but 10-year-old Carrie is really craving surf and turf. Doesn't matter what it is - food, clothes, home decor, even ridiculous things like plants and pens. The things I love are almost always the ones I can't afford. Having great taste is a curse, I tell you.

But that's not the point... the point is that in an attempt to reign this in, Andy has started saying the dreaded b-word to me. BUDGET. I told him I would do my very best to not spend more than $1500-$2000 on this ENTIRE ROOM. Which is equal parts crazy, challenging, and totally necessary. Anyway - here's the current breakdown of how much I am willing and able to spend on certain aspects of this office redo:

• Paint - $100
• Rug - $300
• Couch - $200
• Desk - $200
• Built-ins - $400
• Curtains - $100
• Stuff - $300 (lamps, shelf styling stuff, office supplies, frames and prints, end tables, pillows, etc.)

Now look, some of you (especially if I'm getting of you real designer types looking at this), are thinking how totally unrealistic those numbers are. I know I was thinking the same thing looking at them. But I, like so many other people, want to be in a beautiful space that still allows me to pay my bills. To accomplish this, I am going to have to go outside the box in some cases, and be happy with big-box in others. Craigslist and garage sales are my friend. Clearance stickers are my friend. I will be using a lot of stuff that I already have, even if it's not the stuff I most want. Mom, I hope you appreciate how hard I am adulting right now.

PAINT

It is such a cliche, but boy is it true. Nothing refreshes a space like a new coat of paint. Because I want to infuse a lot of color in a lot of the other elements of this room, I opted to go white on the walls to serve as a nice bright canvas. None of the other rooms in my house are white, so this is actually kind of a fun change for me. I chose Nano White from the Behr Home Decorators Collection. It's actually only on 3 of the walls in the room, because the 4th wall continues right in to the entry-way, which leads right in to the rest of the house. There just wasn't a good breaking point, and I didn't want to have to paint the entire entryway too, so one light gray-green wall will remain.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DSC_0791.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DSC_0797.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

COUCH

When I sat down to do my design plan, I had a very clear idea of the type of couch I wanted in this office space to lounge and read on. Here are some of my favorite couches that I've been eyeing up for a while now:

1. Trevor Leather Sofa | 2. Modern Chesterfield Leather Sofa | 3. Hamilton Leather Sofa | 4. Hancock Tufted Distressed Chesterfield Leather Sofa | 5. Brooklyn Leather Sofa

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/couches.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

Of course, I already told you that my budget for this couch was about $200 dollars, and in many places they would laugh at me for even getting a leather fabric swatch for that much. So I did what I often do and started the craigslist hunt. Well, wouldn't you know it that this (kinda) beauty popped up not too far from my parents house? I especially love it when that happens because I negotiate the price, ask my mom and dad when they are willing to pick it up, and at some point they deliver it to me and it's almost like I ordered it out of a catalog or online like a civilized furniture buyer would do. HA.

I got the couch for $150 and felt AWESOME about it. Is it a pristine rolled-arm chesterfield? Nope. Is it a comfortable leather couch in pretty good shape that fits my basic design aesthetic? Yes. So we're calling it a win. Here's what the couch looks like in my room versus this random person's basement.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DSC_0796.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

RUG

Confession: I actually bought the rug for this room a few weeks before the One Room Challenge started. whew. I feel so much better now. I had been toying with the idea of getting going on this office for a while, and had been keeping a very close eye on sales going on over at RugsUSA, esalerugs, and wayfair, and was just hoping that some rug would appear that was big enough, beautiful enough, and cheap enough.

Here are some of the rugs that were serious contenders at one point or another:

1. Abstract Waterfall Rug | 2. Keyhole Trellis Rug | 3. Barcelona Area Rug | 4.  Distressed Foggy Medallion Rug | 5. Windsor Printed Overdyed Grove Rug

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/rugs.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

One day I announced to Andy that I was having A RUG CRISIS(!!!). He laughed at me and then sternly lectured me on how picking a rug was not deserving of the word CRISIS in all caps, or even in lowercase for that matter. Following that, I decided for the 867,000th time that I needed a new free design assistant. Then I did the sensible thing - I narrowed it down to the final 3 rugs and let Andy make the final decision because he had put up with me through this whole ordeal.

Here's the rug he chose:

It is so much prettier in person than online. It almost looks sort of pixelated, which I think is kind of a funky cool look.

So that's where I'm at after week 2, with 4 weeks and 5 posts to go. Next week I'll cover how I'm getting a custom desk and "built-ins" for way cheap without making my parents go on any sketchy craigslist runs. Hint: It mostly involves my dad being awesomely handy and nice to me. Stay tuned for that, and feel free to leave a comment telling Andy how much you love the rug he chose so that his ego grows to enormous proportions. That's just what I need in my life.

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/DSC_0790.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

One Room Challenge: The Office| Week 1

[et_pb_section admin_label="section"][et_pb_row admin_label="row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/guestparticipant.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] Earlier this year, I wrote a post called The Year of Diving In. In it, I talked about how this year I was going to make more of an effort to do things I wasn't 100% would go well for me, but that I knew I would enjoy or at least get satisfaction out of completing. The One Room Challenge falls squarely in this category.

For those of you that don't know, the One Room Challenge was started by Linda at Calling It Home, and over the last 5 years it has grown to basically be the biannual highlight of the interior design blog world. I was trying to explain how it worked to Andy (for those of you just joining Andy is my boyfriend and self-proclaimed worst design assistant ever), and naturally I had to resort to sports metaphors to do it. Design bloggers from all corners of the internet will participate in the challenge to makeover one room of their house, and blog about it once a week for the next 6 weeks. On Wednesdays 20 selected bloggers, basically the varsity squad, will post. On Thursdays, anyone else can join in and link up their posts to be included as guest participants. I'm something akin to a scrawny 6th grader trying to play with the JV squad. But hey - diving in, right?!

This challenge actually came at a really good time for me. 3 MONTHS ago (yikes!) I posted about my general design plan for my office redo. Well...after 3 months of a lot of work travel, family events, and world-class procrastination, my office still looks about exactly the same.

As a refresher, here's how the room looked in the listing photos before I bought my house.

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="Row"][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2014-12-12-09.45.54.jpg" alt="Office Before" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type="1_2"][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2014-12-12-09.45.49.jpg" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][et_pb_row admin_label="Row"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

I did have a big L-shaped ikea desk in there as a placeholder for a while, but that's about it. The office is open to the dining room through french doors, and once I had the dining room all done and put together, I really felt like the office had to be more cohesive with that space.

Here is what you see of the dining room from the office:

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/roomwide_watermark.jpg" alt="The Casual Creative Dining Room" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

Without further ado, here is the updated design plan:

[/et_pb_text][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/office-mood-board-part-2.jpg" alt="Office Design Plan" title_text="Office Design Plan 2.0" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_image admin_label="Image" src="http://www.thecasualcreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/office-layout-e1451962713629.jpg" alt="Office Space Plan" show_in_lightbox="off" url_new_window="off" use_overlay="off" animation="off" sticky="off" align="left" force_fullwidth="off" always_center_on_mobile="on" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"] [/et_pb_image][et_pb_text admin_label="Text" background_layout="light" text_orientation="left" use_border_color="off" border_color="#ffffff" border_style="solid"]

Moving things around in photoshop is pretty easy, but making all of this come to life and you know, hopefully look good, in 6 weeks is pretty daunting.

My list of tasks includes:

• Paint the room
• Find a rug
• Find a desk
• Find a couch
• Build and paint built-ins
• Curtains
• Art and frames for a gallery wall
• Figure out the lighting plan - this room has NO overhead light, and I'm not an electrician
• Style out the shelves and the desk

Now I believe in managing expectations, so let's be real clear. I've got no sponsors, no pro design friends helping me out, a budget of about $1500, tops (lol - that includes furniture. this should be interesting.) and none of these photos will be taken by a professional photographer or be professionally staged. Andy will try to be helpful, and I love that man, but let's be real - I better be prepared to tackle most of the design work on my own.

Now that I've adequately lowered your expectations I'm sure you CAN'T WAIT to check back next week and see how the office is progressing (or not). Seeing all the other amazing rooms and designers challenges has definitely made me feel inspired to take this on though. So ready set - DIVE IN!

[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]

Before and After: My Bright and Comfy Family Room

When I moved in to my shiny new house a little more than a year ago I had two primary feelings. First off, I was insanely grateful to my family and friends that helped me get there, both literally and figuratively. I had moved 4 times in 5 years, and bought and sold 2 houses during that time. I knew this would be a more permanent locale (God willing) and moving in felt like one big giant sigh of relief. But like after most sighs of relief, the overwhelming weight of what you've just done sets in. Where on earth was I supposed to start? I hardly had enough furniture to fill 3 rooms, let alone the whole house.

Fortunately, the answer to "where to start" came fairly quickly, because I didn't own a couch. In fact, one of Andy and my first dates involved sitting on approximately 3947 couches and Andy filling his manly role by extolling the virtues of leather reclining couches with built-in cup holders and speakers. Unfortunately for Andy, it wasn't his house, and he wasn't buying the couch, so there was no man-cave special purchased.

I did, however, put my big girl pants on and bought a giant sectional that is perfect for sitting on and sinking into. It's what my giant living room needed. When you have a giant living room with just a couch, a too-small TV on the floor, and an 80s brick fireplace, that's where you focus your attention first.

Here's the before shot from when the house was listed. Please note: this is not the couch I purchased.

To start with, I knew that fireplace needed some TLC. I gave it a good scrubbing (seriously, ew. Bricks are dirty.) and then whitewashed it with watered down white paint. I toyed with the idea of painting it white-white, but in the end I still wanted to see some of the variation in the brick and the texture come through. It's amazing what the effect of lightening up that big heavy fireplace had.

I knew I didn't want to mount the TV above the fireplace because it's one of my personal pet peeves. Lucky for me, my dad had built a giant buffet for my previous house that I knew would actually work super well as a TV stand. It has lots of great storage and provided some punch to the room. Now I know that most people wouldn't decide to design a room around a large piece of orange furniture, but I am an unapologetic color person, and I still love this thing and its color.

My dad had also previously built me a large, beautiful coffee table that was meant to look like one from a higher-end furniture store that rhymes with Lottery Yarn. My dad is really the MVP of my house, big time.

After that, I said a little prayer for my bank account, bit the bullet, and bought a BIG rug that I knew would tie the space together. I think I rant in almost every post about how expensive rugs are, but in this space it was SO SO important to get the big 10x14' rug to cozy up the space.

I wish I had more progress photos to show you, but at that point in time I was really just trying to remember my zipcode and unpack boxes. The thought of taking pictures of rooms mid-disaster didn't even occur to me.

Anyway, you'll have to live with the after photos.

I'll point out some special things on these shelves that either Andy or I really love, but I would be remiss if I didn't point out the single most contested decor item in my home. Enter the fuzzy green ball.

If you look on the left side of the shelving toward the top, there is a fake turf-covered ball. Andy has a completely irrational hatred of the fuzzy green ball. In fact, when we have friends over it's not unusual for Andy to say "Yeah, Carrie did a great job in here except for that stupid ugly green ball. What the heck is the point of it?! I don't get it.... blah blah." Dear Andy, I love you, but please get over the green ball. But I digress....

Andy's most prized possessions in this room are the 3 baseballs on the right hand shelves. They all have to be on that side (drives me nuts) because otherwise the direct sunlight will fade the treasured signatures of Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Hank Aaron.

The awesome orange and gray bud vases are done by my uber-talented brother-in-law, Andrew. And yes, my sister is married to an Andrew and I'm dating an Andy. If Haley doesn't find a Drew to settle down with pretty quickly everything will just feel out of whack. But AndREW is a chemistry teacher and potter, and I love displaying and using his work in my home. Find him on instagram @ALpottery.

The adorable dog on the mantle is my parents dog/the family dog, Trooper. He's freaking adorable, and I miss him, so it didn't strike as weird to put his picture on the mantle. That is, until everyone started asking in hushed tones when my dog had passed away, or where the dog is now. Picture of dog on mantle, and no dog in house = assumptions of dead dog. But hey - no worries. Troopy is alive and well and living out his ridiculously spoiled life at my parents house.

Please excuse the basketball game on TV. Me photographing the room for the blog was not a good enough reason to turn the game off for Andy. But honestly, this room is a long way from perfect or magazine worthy. But I love it, because it was the first room that was done, and it's where all the best stuff happens in our house.

It's where Andy's posse of cable-mooching friends gather to watch football on Sunday, and where some intensely competitive board games are played. It's where Game of Thrones gets watched with friends, and where I convinced Andy to binge watch all of The West Wing with me. Living rooms are the best, and here's my favorite view of mine.

Where My Tax Return Fun Money Went

Tax return season is my favorite! I recognize that it's not the wisest financial move to let the United States Government serve as your personal savings account, but they happen to be a little better at it than I am, so I don't fight it. Yes, I did put a chunk of my tax return in to savings, and I'm deep in the office redo process, but I still had a little extra to make some fun purchases I've been eyeing up. On to the shopping roundup!

1. Hip Twist Print by Teil Duncan

There is a new favorite lady in my house, painted by an amazing artist I recently discovered. Teil Duncan does figure prints and other whimsical prints in amazing colors, and I couldn't stop thinking about this one after I saw it. The colors will be perfect my office, and her prints are super reasonably priced, and often can be found on One King's Lane.

2. The Inspired Room: Simple Ideas to Love the Home You Have by Melissa Michaels

I have a serious love for design books of all styles and varieties. They're great sources of inspiration and fun to page through with friends. Most of these books, however, are very aspirational and not at all practical for us regular folks. The Inspired Room manages to bridge the gap between practical life advice and beautiful design, and would make a great gift to friends and relatives diving in to new homes. Their mantra? Your home should be a sanctuary, not a showroom - everyone can get behind that!

3. Bone Links Necklace | BaubleBar

This necklace is pretty, so I bought it. I have no idea what I'll wear it with, but it's tax return season so I'm not bothering with any of that normal logic business.

4. Midnight Floral Curtains | Pier1

The dining area right off my entryway has been practically begging me for new curtains for a while now. Now, this rant could probably be it's own entire post, but WHY DID THE CURTAIN INDUSTRY DECIDE TO ONLY SELL CHEAP CURTAINS THAT ARE TOO SHORT FOR EVERYTHING???!!! Sure, big box stores sell some decent looking curtains, but 84" just DOES NOT cut it for most spaces. Well guess what, Pier1 has a bunch of their extra long curtains on sale! These dark floral printed curtains are even sexier in person, and I cannot get enough of them.

5. The Modernist Lena Ankle Pant | LaneBryant

I struggle with pants a lot. I'm a curvy girl and pants really fit my thighs, butt, and waist well, but I am going to wear these pants all spring and summer. I got a basic black pair first, but loved the fit and the comfy stretchiness so much I went back and bought more fun colors and patterns. Well done, LB.

6. Masterbuilt Pro Dual Fuel Smoker

Andy is pretty lucky that his birthday falls pretty close to tax return season, which encourages me to spend a little more and spoil him. This year, he got a smoker. He hasn't fired it up yet, but has been all over the place looking at recipes and techniques to perfect his meat smoking skills. He's excited because this smoker runs on either charcoal or propane. I'm sure I'll be posting some results this summer!

7. Artisan Glass Lamp | Target

Target's home decor has been SO INCREDIBLE lately. I've been picking up pieces for my office redo and other nooks and crannies of my house here or there, but for $25 this lamp was easy standout.

8. Vivacious Leather Wedge | Nine West

Spring means the reemergence of lots of things - flowers, green grass, and most importantly, open-toed shoes! I thought this pair was neutral enough to go with a lot of different work or casual outfits, but had a little something extra special about them. Getting them with Amazon Prime meant they were at my door before the weather got cold again - Minnesota is kind of a tease like that.

9. Distressed Foggy Medallion Rug | RugsUSA.com

My office needed a big rug to warm up the expanse of wood floors, and Andy actually picked this one out of my top 3 options. I was super impressed at the quality of it when it came - it's obviously not actually overdyed, but it gives it a really cool, almost pixelated look. The blues are a little lighter and brighter in person, and I can't wait to show it to you when I reveal the office!

10. Fossil Preston Flap

You avid readers might be saying, "Hey Carrie, didn't you just buy a pretty nice purse back in January when you did this shopping roundup the first time??" And to you I'd say, "Yep. Sure did. But this one serves an entirely different purpose so it's totally justified." Andy bought that line of thinking, so I hope you will too. This was a splurge for me, but after being on a business trip and having a little cross body bag that didn't fit my camera (major pain), I really wanted a nice bag that fit my camera plus the stuff a purse has to carry - wallet, phone, etc. This one is the perfect size and is made from beautiful leather. It has lots of compartments to carry all my stuff, and I couldn't be happier with it.

11. Macrame Throw Pillow | Threshold for Target

Another day, another Target impulse purchase. This pillow was just too special to pass up. I'm not going all hippie dippie macrame crazy, (my mom was shocked when I told her macrame was back in!) but I liked having a little touch of it in my new office.

I've also had a ton of great thrift store finds this month, but it always drives me crazy when other bloggers post unique vintage finds and say things like "look at these amazing chairs I found for $1 each!". Well that's great for you, I'll never find amazing vintage for $1. ever. But anyway, that's the stuff I bought - let me know if you have any questions or any great purchases of your own!

Save

CULTURE SHOCK | Gulf Coast Mardi Gras (part 3)

Here it is folks - the final part of our big, loud Mardi Gras adventure. Here is PART 1 and PART 2 if you need to catch up.

MONDAY

As I'm sitting down to write this post and thinking about our third day of Mardi Gras, the wave of exhaustion I was feeling that Monday morning is washing over me all over again. We had been dancing, drinking, changing clothes, and lugging pounds of beads around with a 1000 or so other people, and we were definitely feeling like fuddy duddy old yankees.

Luckily, Monday during the day was pretty low-key because everyone was anticipating THE ROYAL CORONATION BALL. *Insert trumpet fanfare here* In fact, you should just keep those trumpet fanfares and royal marches playing in your head as you read this - it was pretty much the soundtrack of the day.

Unfortunately, Rachel had to get back to medical school on Monday, so she missed out on all of our Monday shenanigans (#smartgirlsmissparties) - so when she's suddenly missing from pictures that's why. We had a bunch of free-time on Monday for the first time since we'd been down there, so after helping to clean-up from some of the Sunday shenanigans, we ditched my parents and set out to see what each of us could make from $20 at the hotel's casino. Spoiler alert - we lost it all. But fun fact - Britney Spears slot machines are not very popular with the older casino crowd, and offer some great throwback Britney music videos while they take your money.

This is Haley basking in Britney's money-sucking glow.

This is Haley drowning her gambling sorrows with ice cream.

Anyway, let's get on to the main event. Which of course is the Royal Coronation Ball! The ball consists of two main components. The first is a ceremony. The second is just a really fun party - band, champagne, food - except everyone is dressed up. The ceremony is clearly the most foreign and over-the-top element to non-gulf coasters, so let's focus on that.

The Royal Coronation Ball is strictly black tie, so we all got dressed in our gowns and tuxes, and headed to the Coliseum where this all goes down. At this point, I only have one major complaint about this whole thing. We show up to the coliseum, check our coats, and promptly have to walk up four flights of stairs to get to the seating. You want to see something funny? Watch a bunch of women in tight, floor-length gowns wearing 4 inch heels (many of whom have obviously been pre-gaming) start their evening by walking up four flights of stairs. Dumb. Knock one of those courses off of the Queen's brunch menu and donate an escalator. (The building IS accessible, so I'm sure there was an elevator somewhere, just not anywhere near the flow of traffic.)

The good news is I made it up the stairs in one piece and the rest of the evening was extremely enjoyable! I will warn you that the program for this ceremony was pretty much a full magazine, so I won't cover every detail of the hour and a half program, but I'll definitely hit the highlights.

The ceremony started with the introductions of past royalty, a little history about the association, a dance number from a local dance company. The main event, however, are the presentations of the members of the court. As I mentioned previously, each pair of royalty represented a headline-making news event, and that's what their costumes and introduction video highlighted. Here are a few phone videos that I snapped.

Each couple's time on stage consisted of the following elements:

1. Emerge from arches during very highly produced intro video
2. Walk toward partner and bow/curtsy. Join hands and start walking as slowly and gracefully as you can while wearing 40 pounds of sequins and fabric while dragging a 20-foot train.
3. Walk to one side of the stage while the announcers give a detailed biography of the Duke's business accomplishments, and list all 156 community boards he currently sits on.
4. Official mardi gras double wave and smile.
5. Walk to center of stage and wave and smile to your mom or wife.
6. Walk to other side of stage while the announcers give a detailed biography of the Maid's high school and college accomplishments. You thought that nobody would ever know if you were voted most likely to succeed or girl with the prettiest hair by your 9th grade classmates? Well you thought wrong.
7. Wave and smile
8. Gracefully ascend to your pedestal where you will be standing for the next hour and smiling like crazy.

This is serious business folks. There are 8 pairs on the court, and while this takes a while, it is fun to see the various costumes and hear a little more about the royalty. The costumes!

insane,

Once all of the royal court is on their podiums, the King and Queen make their grand entrance. It pretty much follows the same pattern as the others, except they walk around the stage TWICE and each have small children trailing them to fix their 40-foot long trains.

especially

With the pomp and picture taking out of the way, we went on to party the night away! The band was great, and everyone had a great time dancing in their fancy clothes (except Andy who had tux pants that were just a little too big to stay up :) ).

I can't thank my Aunt and Jennifer enough for inviting us down to experience all of this and for being such amazing hosts while we were there. I wish I had an equivalent experience in my life that I could invite you all to, but my life is much less glamorous and involves fewer sequins and more sweatpants.

If anyone ever gets the chance to get down to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, whether it be for Mardi Gras or just to enjoy yourself along the beautiful beach, definitely do it.